Caltrain withers as Silicon Valley business leaders campaign for transit

In Washington D.C. today Carl Guardino, President of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, was calling for transit reform. The group represents heavy hitters like Microsoft and Yahoo, and Guardino said that, for these businesses, public transportation is a “lifeline.” “Allowing the cuts to service we have seen around the country to continue will only worsen congestion for commuters and increase the challenge of attracting the talent that our cutting-edge businesses depend on,” he said.

In other news today, Caltrain, the main commuter artery between San Jose and San Francisco, declared a state of fiscal emergency. Caltrain has proposed cutting 50 percent of service. The situation is so dire that Caltrain leader Mike Scanlon has said that the transit agency may not survive.

What are we to make of these two items in conjunction: “Ironic, isn’t it?” said Caltrain representative Christine Dunn.

It was April 1st that Scanlon said Caltrain might fail. It hasn’t made any service cuts yet (or decided what those cuts would be), though the state of fiscal emergency allows it to make sudden changes if need be. Here’s what’s new(s) since then: High-speed rail could ride in and be the white knight by providing the money to make Caltrain electric. If it replaces the diesel engines, Dunn says, the train could operate so much more cheaply that it could expand service while cutting cost. Electricity is a lot cheaper than diesel fuel. And electric trains can accelerate much faster than the diesel engines: The current diesel train making just one stop between San Francisco and San Jose, would be only five minutes faster than an electric train – if that train made 14 stops, Dunn said. So there is the potential for electrification to drive down costs while adding riders.

High-speed rail is supposed to add two tracks and share the corridor with Caltrain, so (Caltrain leaders hope) high-speed rail could dovetail on building some of the electric infrastructure, and pay 40 percent of the $1.3 billion required to switch to electric power. But funding from (or even for high-speed rail) is far from assured.